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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 2001, p. 309-314, Vol. 39, No. 1
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.1.309-314.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Phylogenetic Analysis of Lacazia loboi Places This Previously Uncharacterized Pathogen within the Dimorphic Onygenales

Roger A. Herr,¹ Eric J. Tarcha,¹ Paulo R. Taborda,² John W. Taylor,³ Libero Ajello,⁴ and Leonel Mendoza^1,*

Medical Technology Program, Department of Microbiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1031¹; Instituto L. S. Lima, Bauru, São Paulo, Brazil 17001-970²; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720-3102³; and Department of Ophthalmology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia 30322⁴

Received 20 June 2000/Returned for modification 15 August 2000/Accepted 4 September 2000

Lacazia loboi is the last of the classical fungal pathogens to remain a taxonomic enigma, primarily because it has resisted cultivation and only causes cutaneous and subcutaneous infections in humans and dolphins in the New World tropics. To place it in the evolutionary tree of life, as has been done for the other enigmatic human pathogens Pneumocystis carinii and Rhinosporidium seeberi, we amplified its 18S small-subunit ribosomal DNA (SSU rDNA) and 600 bp of its chitin synthase-2 gene. Our phylogenetic analysis indicated that L. loboi is the sister taxon of the human dimorphic fungal pathogen Paracoccidioides brasiliensis and that both species belong with the other dimorphic fungal pathogens in the order Onygenales. The low nucleotide variation among three P. brasiliensis 18S SSU rDNA sequences contrasts with the surprising amount of nucleotide differences between the two sequences of L. loboi used in this study, suggesting that the nucleic acid epidemiology of this hydrophilic pathogen will be rewarding.

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^* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Medical Technology Program, Department of Microbiology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1031. Phone: (517) 353-7800. Fax (517) 432-2006. E-mail: mendoza9{at}msu.edu.

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Journal of Clinical Microbiology, January 2001, p. 309-314, Vol. 39, No. 1
0095-1137/01/$04.00+0   DOI: 10.1128/JCM.39.1.309-314.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

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